


Silver and Cold

by Blueyedgurl



Series: Song Fics [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on an AFI song, F/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, World Between Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25527082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueyedgurl/pseuds/Blueyedgurl
Summary: Based off of AFI's song Silver and Cold.Ben's time in the World Between Worlds.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Song Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849528
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Silver and Cold

[Silver and Cold video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BguZZ3rGKe0)

_I, I came here by day_

_But I left here in darkness_

_And found you, found you on the way_

When Ben thought back on his life, he saw he was born to the light. It was clear to him now. That the darkness that nipped at his heels all through his childhood was a false flag. A nightmare built on the corrupted scaffolding, hiding the beauty beneath it. A venomous daemon that was tethered to him and chased away the light.

But then there was her. Rey. She was a beacon in the storm. A firefly at night. Despite the hardships of her own life and her natural pull to the darkness she was an embodiment of light. 

She was his oasis in the Jakku desert. She was a landmark on the horizon, a guidepost. He tried to ignore it but there was an undeniable pull and an unmistakable bond that trembled within them both. 

They were two halves of a whole. Tied together by the fates of the force. There was no escape from the tragedy that had been their lives.

_And now, it is silver and silent_

_It is silver and cold_

_You on somber resplendence_

_I hold…_

In the world between worlds his life has no meaning. It is a holding place, like a ribbon in a book. He cannot move forward or backward. He is meant to live in a hell of his own making. Between consideration and longing.

He repents and spills out his regrets. He learns that regrets many things but never the things he is supposed to. He cannot repent for his acts of war because his acts were part of a bigger machine. He only wishes to repent for his blindness in his dealings with Rey. 

Fate is fickle.

He thinks of the time the force allowed him to spend with Rey. Short. Fleeting. Blissful. Damning.

He was the fool who had ignored her pleas. Each one she made was one was a path he could have taken and stayed with her. 

He sees it now, his visions of her turning to the dark. They now had potential to come to fruition because he was in this place. Their bond wasn’t gone but it wasn’t thriving like when they had fought side by side. It was a flicker of a signal, an indistinct distress call from the outer rim. 

He could feel her loneliness. It was his constant companion. It was his punishment. He tugged at the bond hoping that she knew he was there.

_Your sins into me_

_Oh, my beautiful one_

_Your sins into me, oh_

_As a rapturous voice escapes_

_I will tremble a prayer_

_And I will beg for forgiveness_

_Your sins into me_

_Your sins into me_

_Oh, my beautiful one_

As he relived his life’s regrets, he made atonement for his greatest disappointments. He regretted never returning to his mother. He regretted murdering his father. He asked for forgiveness from the lives that he himself had chosen to take. There were less than he thought. 

Snoke was right, he had his father’s heart. The lives he had taken were not taken with glee. He would have avoided taking them if he could. He sees that now.

He sees every other path laid before him from the time he was a child. The chances he could have taken to not end up where he now stood. There were fewer than he had ever imagined. Many roads lead to the same place. 

He saw where he would have met Rey if he hadn’t strayed from the light. 

He saw where their paths crossed if she had turned to the dark. Because she turned first. Because she took his hand. Because she was alone. 

He saw how he would have met her if he wasn’t so strong in the force. 

No matter what path he took there was a stubborn need to prove himself. Very few where their fighting didn’t end in her demise or his. 

Both of them suffered when cut off from the bond.

A half life when you knew what it felt like to be complete was a special kind of hell.

His chest still ached despite his body being a figment of his imagination.

_Light, like a flutter of wings_

_Feel your hallow voice rushing_

_Into me as your longing to sing_

_So I, will paint you in silver_

_I will wrap you in cold_

_I will lift up your voice as I sink_

His longing for her was his only friend. He realized that it wasn’t new. He came to the realization that it was what drew him towards her in the forest. 

He had cradled her in his arms, his enemy and his everything. If he hadn’t been so blind, he would have seen it for what it was, rather than some infatuation to have power and control over something smaller than him. That’s what Snoke wanted to believe him capable of. 

Control meant safety from pain. It meant a desperate need to take his revenge on Luke.

Sometimes he heard Rey’s voice like an echo. He heard and saw snippets of her life now and it pained him.

When she forced a smile and faked a laugh, it wasn’t her. Not really. She was in pain and it was his fault. He had taken too many wrong turns.Hel

He begged for forgiveness for leaving her. Like everyone had. By choice or by force. 

The force saw fit to take everyone away from her that she had tried to cling to. He had taken the rest.

Her parents. His father. His mother. Luke. Even her friends from the resistance had left her in one way or another. Their lives were not connected. 

He was too much of a secret for her to conceal and still be able to live freely.

His fault, his fault. If he wasn’t so shameful maybe she could claim him and she wouldn’t have to hide herself away.

He hated every choice that brought them here, loathed himself. He wished he could have seen she was enough. She was everything. His everything.

_Your sins into me_

_Oh, my beautiful one, now_

_Your sins into me_

_As a rapturous voice escapes I will tremble a prayer_

_And I will beg for forgiveness_

_Your sins into me_

_Your sins into me_

He wanted to absorb her pain. Her life had been and continued to be a canyon, ran through with a river of hurt. Yet, she let him in. She believed in his goodness, despite what he had done to her. The things he did in the name of vengeance, pain, fear and war.

He wanted to eat her sins, devour her pain until the only things she had was a life that was whole. He could feel where the broken shards of her life cut at her and pressed into her softness. He wanted to be a layer of armor that took on the cuts and barbs life gave her. 

Sometimes he allowed himself the relief of pretending the bond was whole and that she could feel him. Let himself shout across the void every single thing he wanted her to have. 

He doubted she could hear him at all.

He had grown up to be a jealous and bitter creature, but he found himself still hoping that she would find love and belonging, even if it couldn’t be with him.

He wanted her to find a family despite his bitter feelings towards his own.

He wanted her to find the belonging that he only had ever experienced with her.

He wanted her to live in the balance of light and darkness even if it pained him to consider living in either. 

He wanted her to be free even while he was confined to this cell.

He wanted her life to be full while his was a void. 

He wanted her to live in a life of riotous color while he carved out a meager existence atoning for the sins of his past.

_Cold in life’s throes_

_I’ll fall…_

Time passed. It could have been hours, months, a decade and he felt himself sinking into a free fall. 

A whoosh, a buzz a flash of light. Then her. He felt her all around him and through him. A miraculous feeling of having bond connected and restored. 

It was euphoric and more pleasant than what he had dared to long for. 

When he opened his eyes, he was met with her face. An expression of sadness and surprise. She feared it wasn’t real. 

But then her smile was real. Her laugh was real. He reached out to touch her, and she was a solid warmth. She fell into him as a solid weight. Her mouth was on his and his hands were in her hair and he saw their future. 

It was whole. It was joy. It held sadness and pain. But it was theirs.

He'd do all of it again if it meant he could have this, her, the story that came next.


End file.
